Position on the environment

When we take our air, waters and land for granted; when we show a simple lack of respect for nature and our environment, we unmake God’s good creation. Humanity is the most important endangered species under threat from climate change and yet we flood our ecology with poisons and pollution. It is my belief that our country needs better environmental protections and that real protections do not have to come at the expense of jobs or our economy. Whatever we do to the earth, we do to each other.

Throughout my career in Congress, I have supported the strongest environmental measures. I support strengthening the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and giving the Environmental Protection Agency the resources it has long been denied. To do anything less would cost lives, money, and the future of our planet.

Opposes exiting the Paris Agreement

In June 2017, heopposed the White House’s decision to exit the Paris Agreement:

I was deeply concerned by this nation’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. I do not agree with the dark vision of America’s future the president described that pits accepting responsibility for our environmental impact against the economic stability and vitality of our country.

The president itemized damages to American industries and jobs, through our involvement with a non-binding agreement, but that same concern was critically absent from the budget he sent to Capitol Hill. In it he proposes to cut key supports for American workers, like the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). The MEP helps create or retain more than 80,000 American manufacturing jobs every year.

This decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement lessens American strength, puts us at odds with our major allies, and leaves room for other nations, like China and the European Union, to fill the void our departure has created. If we pull back and pull out of negotiations, we cannot help shape international climate policies that affect our nation’s future. The rest of the world has seen the economic and environmental benefit of clean energy, and they will leave us behind.

We do not live on this planet alone. It is not ours to hoard, waste, or abuse. It is our responsibility to leave this world a little more clean and a little more peaceful for all who must inhabit it for generations to come.

Position on energy

America needs a new energy strategy. Fossil fuels are in short supply, they are too expensive and they pollute. Our country sends almost $1 billion a day overseas to import crude oil and still we have no national energy plan. Our reliance on coal puts extreme amounts of waste into our environment and still we have no national energy plan. More than 30 states have a Renewable Energy Standard and still we have no national energy plan. If we are ever to prosper again, we cannot continue to rely on outdated resources that contribute to global warming and keep us dependent on unstable countries. I strongly believe that the longer we take to make tough decisions about energy, the more likely we are to have those decisions made for us – and not on our terms.

Whether we like it or not, the days of cheap gasoline and worry-free coal are coming to a close. That is why I support renewable investments, clean energy targets, price signals, tax incentives and public investment as paths towards clean energy freedom. Wherever clean energy policies are adopted, private investment follows and the United States has the most to gain from adopting such policies.